


Cinder Breadcrumbs

by esama



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dubious Morality, Gen, Immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 07:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the decades, he went by several different names before going back to John Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cinder Breadcrumbs

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on fanfiction.net on 02/07/2012  
> Proofread by Spurio and Darlene

John doesn't say anything, as he accepts the folder from Mycroft. He already knows what's in it, roughly – Mycroft is much more expressive than Sherlock, in his own way, and John has long since learned how to read him. It's all there, on Mycroft's face – the smug superiority, but also confusion, wariness and fascination mingled, ruthless determination and the slightest reluctance.

Mycroft _knows_ , probably less than John does, but he knows enough, and he knows John's gone through some trouble to hide it. Mycroft is confused about how it's possible, he's wary about the implications of it – what if there are more out there? – but he's fascinated, eager to know, and yet he's prepared to do whatever was necessary to protect Sherlock, if it came to that – as reluctant as he was, he would _deal_ with John anyway he could, in order to protect Sherlock.

John smiles faintly at that expression of emotion, so elegantly hidden and yet expressed all at once. Mycroft's brand of hiding, of lying – let it all show, but such that no one knows how to read it properly. Mycroft lies to the mind, all the while making the subconscious see just enough to believe in that lie. It's really quite good. Who knows if the man knows yet that all that careful subterfuge is useless against him, John's been around way too long not to have learned how to understand subtle changes.

Letting that go, John looks down to the folder. It's thick, almost as thick as two of his fingers put together. That's some research. Smile fading a bit, John opens the folder, to see the first page. His birth certificate – the fake one that said he’d been born in the nineteen seventies. John puts that aside, and sees his school photo, taken in his first year at university. He’d had longer hair back then, a different style of clothing, and he had _looked_ younger.

"Did you pay them?" Mycroft asks idly. "The Watson family, did you pay them to play along with your charade?"

"Five hundred thousand pounds to begin with," John agrees without any shame or worry – Mycroft must've known that he had, it was very hard to hide that sort of increase from one's bank-statements and if Mycroft couldn't get his hands on those, John didn't know who could. "Another five hundred thousand once I went to university."

Mycroft frowns, and John turns the page again. There are no more pictures of John Watson there, not as he is now. Instead there is a picture from the nineteen sixties, a group photo from Vietnam. John picks this one up, looking at it more closely – gods, he had almost forgotten. Jackie, Ted, Will, even August was there – all of whom were dead and had been for a long time now.

"You went by Jonathan Watkins back then, didn't you?" Mycroft asked. "Doctor Jonathan Watkins of the third US Infantry Regiments, medical platoon."

"Yeah," John says, sighing a bit wistfully. Then, shaking his head at the old memories and wars fought – and lost – he lays the picture down, and turns to the next one. His recruitment details, god, he hadn't even realised that the paperwork still _existed_. "Where did you get these?" he asks, honestly impressed, as he lifted the papers for a closer look. There was no photo, of course, but they were his papers. Jonathan Howard Watkins, a.k.a. John Watkins, plus his previous training, his history in medicine, recommendations for this or that training. It felt like it had been ages ago.

"I have my means, as I am sure that you do yours," Mycroft says calmly, but the look in his eyes when John glances up is burning with questions.

"I suppose you want to know how it's possible I was running around in Vietnam a good ten years before I was born?" John asks with a faint smile and places the papers down. The next in line are the records of his medical training in the US, his fourth – no, fifth – doctorate in medicine.

Mycroft says nothing, just glances down at the folder. John shakes his head, more amused than worried, really, and puts the papers about his medical training aside. The next one is a picture of him in the Great Smog, then another of his research paper into the precise effects of gas inhalation – he had presented that to the class of 1950 in Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital. Then there are some scattered pictures of him on various battlefields, treating wounds, standing in a group photo – his recruitment details, this time for the British Expeditionary Force, and later to some other regiments. A list of the battles he’d been in, the actions he’d been part of, usually as a doctor, but sometimes as infantry man, as a gunner, once a sniper, but he hadn't liked that much.

"I think I was still trying to die back then," John murmurs to himself, tracking the first picture of him in those times – John Waters, it had been back then. He had gone into that stupid war with every intention of getting himself killed.

"Why didn't you?" Mycroft asks, reaching for the table between them and pouring himself some tea.

"Difficult to say," John answers, and puts aside the papers and photographs from the Second World War. The nineteen thirties were next – relatively quiet, despite everything, and with only two photos of him. God only knew how Mycroft had found those – John had spent the majority of that time in Sussex. But still there were pictures – the first one a general view of the front of Barts, with some four hundred people there, attending the memorial of a beloved professor – how he had been found among those four hundred, he had no idea. The other one is a snapshot of a crowd by a crime scene, a murder if John recalls it right.

"You were quiet that decade," Mycroft notes.

"I was nursing a dear friend to his death," John answers sadly, and bows his head a bit. Those years in Sussex had been among the best and worst he had. Swallowing and shaking his head, he sets the folder aside for a moment, and pulled out his wallet instead – ignoring the way Mycroft twitches, expecting something worse. It takes some doing to pry the picture from its niche, where he had so carefully hidden it from Sherlock, but he manages it. "I think this is the twenty fifth copy," he says, while holding the photo out to Mycroft. "So it’s lost some of its details."

He doesn't need to look at it, to remember what it looks like, though. Him, still a young man, standing beside an elderly man sitting in a wheelchair – a man with white hair smoothed back from his face, still retaining some of his youthful handsomeness in his face, and eyes as sharp as knifes. Mycroft looks at the picture with little understanding, doesn't know who it is, and John smiles sadly. He wouldn't know, of course, not after the trouble John had gone through to erase that part of history.

"That, Mycroft, is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the senior," he says, making Mycroft look up sharply. "He's your great great granduncle," he specifies and then winces as the other man's fingers tighten around the faded, black and white picture. "Please don't," John says, reaching for the picture. "It's the last picture I have of him; I really don't want to lose it."

"How –" Mycroft starts to ask, even while handing the picture back. "How long have you been following our family?"

"Hm. Almost hundred and twenty years now," John says, looking down to the picture fondly, tracing one fingertip over Holmes's face. "Mr. Holmes was the first one – that was back when I still thought I could die like a normal man." He shakes his head sadly and puts the picture back to his wallet tenderly. Then he turned back to the folder.

The rest of the papers, he knows, are from his first life as Doctor John H. Watson. It wouldn't have everything, but it would have more than the lives since – he had after all, lived _more_ back then. It would have records of his childhood years, his school years, his service, and of course his research papers, maybe even some recordings from his practice. What it wouldn't have was any mention of Sherlock Holmes – maybe pictures of him, but no recordings.

"How old are you?" Mycroft asks, watching his face closely.

"Hundred and sixty, or almost anyway. I was born in eighteen fifty four – actually born, not just on paper," John specifies, glancing through the rest of the papers and then setting them all down. He then turns to face the man before him, raising his eyebrows. "So. What now?"

"What now – now you answer questions, Doctor Watson, Watkins, Waters, whatever your name is," Mycroft said, frowning. "How is it that you've lived this long? And not aging one year since your late thirties, I think."

"No, not one year," John agrees with a sigh, and leans back a bit. "I don't know how. It was the Second Anglo-Afghan War, something happened there. I'm not entirely sure what, when – a lot of things happened back then that I still can't explain, more things I don't want to explain, but after that…" he frowns. "I think it might've happened in the retreat from Maiwand. I was wounded and left behind – I ate something, a bird, I think. But it could've been anything, really."

"You ate a _bird_ and suddenly you're immortal?" Mycroft asks with a highly suspicious look.

"That’s my best guess. Either that or I was just born different, but none of my original family shared this particular trait, so I rather doubt it," John shrugs and then looks at the man seriously. "I don't have any answers about that, Mycroft. And trust me; I've looked for them for a hundred years and more, with little success. I don't have the key to immortality – I'm not really an immortal at any rate. I've just gotten lucky, so far."

" _Lucky_?"

"I think a bullet to the head will kill me just as well as it would kill you. I just haven't been shot in the head yet. Or the heart," the doctor answers and smiles. "I get ill, Mycroft. I've been wounded – you have no idea how many scars I've had to get surgically removed, just to maintain appearances. I'd be riddled with them by now, if it wasn't for plastic surgery and skin grafts."

"But you don't age," Mycroft says with a frown.

"I don't age," John agrees sadly. "I wish to god I did, at times. I wish I had died back then, when naturally I should've. Agelessness is not a gift. Not by a long shot."

Frowning a bit, the man who is the British Government looked away, tapping his finger absently against his knee. "Did you arrange your meeting with Sherlock?" the man finally asks.

"I arranged my whole life to meet him," John answers, and smiles at the look Mycroft sends him. "The moment you were born, Mycroft, I started planning it. I found a family by the name of Watson, and I paid them off, when the time was right. With some twiddling, I managed to build myself a new life on paper – birth certificates, hospital records, even school records are easy to fake, in the end, when you have the expertise. Then, when my newest persona was at the appropriate age, I rolled _myself_ into Barts, and started studying for my newest doctorate."

"Why not just come forth – why this charade?" Mycroft asks. "Not only did you learn at Barts, get your doctorate, but you went to Afghanistan, you got _shot_ , wounded, invalided. Was all of that part of your plan?"

"Well, not all of it. When you get to my age, you start noticing things about the world – it doesn't work quite the way we assume it does. There are… certain repeating patterns in it, when you look close enough," John laughs softly. "My intention was to just get my doctorate, become Doctor Watson like I had been a long time ago, and then somehow worm myself into Sherlock's life. It didn't turn out that way – I ended up entering military service, going to war, all of that. And then, after all of that was done, only then did I manage to present myself to Sherlock – it was like something was holding me back until the right moment."

"Why Sherlock?" Mycroft asks with a mild frown.

"Why do you think?" John asks softly, smiling.

"There's no such thing as rebirth."

John laughs openly at that. "Oh, you have no idea," he says, shaking his head and then looking at the man with more amusement than he's felt in decades. "No idea at all. Your position in the British Government – how did you get there?" he asks.

"I don't see what that has to do with this," Mycroft says, scowling a bit worriedly.

"You were recruited at the age of nineteen I think. Before you, the position was held by another extremely brilliant man with the ability to keep all the threads in neat lines in his head – keep the reigns of the government sorted out without leaving a trace of paper work, or any mention of himself or his duties, behind. And before that, there was another equally brilliant man," John says and shrugs at Mycroft's frown. "There's no name for your position, but it's been around for a long time. Over a hundred years, isn’t it?" he asks and smiles. "A position of omnipotence. Unspoken, and extremely vital, and necessary. Without you, the government couldn't function."

"I wouldn't say that," Mycroft answers with a frown.

"But it’s true. It's how the position was designed – by Mycroft Holmes the senior, your great great grandfather, the first holder of that position. The elder brother of Mr. Sherlock Holmes the senior," John says, and smiles a little wider at the way Mycroft blinks at him.

"That doesn't prove anything," Mycroft says then.

"No, I don't suppose it does. Unless one knew you and Sherlock, in your past lives," John says and sighs, leaning his cheek to his knuckles. "You're very much alike. Sure, the edges are different, more time appropriate, and your relationship with each other is a bit more frayed than it used to be, but you're still almost exactly the same. Your abilities, your influence, your calling."

Mycroft scowls at that, but says nothing for a moment. John, willing to let him think, turns his eyes back to the folder. "It took me almost thirty years to erase my own handiwork," he says. "I used to write stories for a magazine called the Strand Magazine – it ran until the nineteen fifties, and I wrote for it until the nineteen twenties, I think. God, it was such an ordeal, to draw my stories back, to hide them. They were all about Holmes, after all, and I needed to cover him up."

"Why?" Mycroft asks, glancing up.

"Because they were a bit too popular," John says, shrugging. "They were even thinking of making books out of them at one point – and that would've made the stories immortal in way I'm not. I couldn't have that."

The man across from him narrowed his eyes. "You were expecting our so called rebirth?" he asks with disbelief.

"I was. Holmes promised that if there was a way to be reborn, he'd find it, and he'd come back," John says with a slight smile and glances up. "And if there was ever a man to find a way to do something like that, it was Sherlock Holmes. The proof of which is right now sulking at 221B Baker Street, no doubt wondering what you're trying to bribe me with this time."

"Bribe?" Mycroft asks and narrows his eyes further. "I think threats are more appropriate at this point."

"Maybe," John agrees, and glances at the folder. "You certainly have the material. Not to mention the scientific curiosity – I bet there'd be hundreds of researches who would just love to dissect me to see what makes me tick," he adds with some amusement. "You won't do it, though."

"And why ever not?" Mycroft asks, folding his arms and scowling at him with all the smugness and superiority of the British Government.

John smiles. "For one, I haven't done any harm. Not to you, not to Sherlock."

"Except for manipulating my brother," Mycroft answers tightly.

"You say it like you haven't."

Mycroft says nothing to that, and John smiles a little wider. "For two," he continues. "I would throw myself in front of a bullet meant for Sherlock without any hesitation. Sure, there’s a good chance I'd survive it, but the fact remains. I am what amounts to the perfect bodyguard for Sherlock – I understand it, I keep up with him most of the time, and I would die for him if it came to that. And I have some half dozen medical doctorates. So I am pretty good at stitching up wounds."

Mycroft nods a bit at that, looking like he had to concede that point against his will. "That doesn't mean that you aren't a threat," he says. "You have motivations beyond your friendship with Sherlock. You have… expectations and the means to realise them. And you're lying to him."

"So are you. You can relax on that score, though. I'm not going to try and turn Sherlock into the Holmes I knew eighty years ago," John answers with a snort. "He already is, and I wouldn't change him for the world. I don't want him to know this, true, but that's because I fear it would distract him from his own life, his own work. He'd be too fascinated – Holmes was too, and it wasn't always a good thing. Besides, I don't want Sherlock to think that my friendship with him isn't real."

"Is it, then?" Mycroft asks suspiciously. "Or are you just trying to relive your old friendship with Holmes the senior?"

"It's the same friendship. Changed, more time appropriate, shifted a bit, but still the same. No matter what you think, Sherlock Holmes to me is Sherlock Holmes – and god only knows I had my differences with him. Still do, and I still have the possibility of walking out on this and doing something else, but I won't because Sherlock Holmes is, no matter what you think, my friend, and perfect just the way he is."

Mycroft eyes him silently for a long time. "If we were to say that you are correct, and that Sherlock is your Holmes reborn, that I am Mycroft Holmes the Senior, my own great great grandfather, and I don't believe we are… then why am I here? Why was I reborn?"

"Why do you think?" John asks. "You said it yourself, when we… _met_ for the first time. You worry about Sherlock. _Constantly._ "

Mycroft allows a smile to grace his lips at that, but it's gone as quickly as it came. "I still don't believe this, I rather doubt I ever will," he says, reaching out his hand towards the folder, which John hands back to him. "But I have this evidence, so I believe that much," the man adds. "I will be watching you, Doctor Watson. Should you do _anything_ suspicious…"

"Yes, yes, I know," John says and stands up. "I can expect an unmarked black car to pick me up on my way to the grocery store. Is there anything else you wanted, Mycroft?"

"Not at this point, no," the man says, and binds the folder before taking out his phone. "I will be doing more research, however. You may count on that."

"I will," John agrees, looking at the man for a moment, remembering how he had looked in his last life – Sherlock really had no right to call this version of Mycroft fat, considering the previous one. "See you around, Mycroft," John said then, and turned to leave. Mycroft offered no answer, too busy with calling a car for John.

"One more thing, Doctor Watson," the man calls, just as John is about to exit the room. "Considering the amount you paid to your new family, your current bank account is… on the slimmer side," Mycroft says thoughtfully, making John turn around. "Do you have another bank account?"

"Several," John shrugs. "None on British soil, though, or under the name of John Watson."

"Ah." Mycroft says, with a glint in his eyes that tells John that he'd be trying to find them anyway. Shaking his head, the doctor smiles and turns to leave.

Mycroft wouldn't – and if he did find even _one_ of them, he would never say a word of it. John Norbury financed a great deal of Mycroft's campaigns after all, as did many of the others. And _no one_ would ever be able to find the trail of one Jonathan Moriarty – the uncle and master of one Jim Moriarty.

Not in their lifetimes anyway.

 


End file.
